Visions of the Future
by Writingnerd291
Summary: One day, Nine realizes that he can see the future...kind of. When he makes physical contact with someone for the first time, Number Nine sees a small snapshot of their future. Of course, he can't tell anyone what their future holds, even as he must watch it unfold.


It was hard to say when exactly the legacy developed. Maybe it started with his fever-dreams of the future, of Setrakus Rá taunting him. But the first time Nine truly noticed his legacy, he was training with Sandor. He blocked his Cêpan's punch, and his skin brushed against Sandor's.

And then Nine was no longer in the Lecture Hall. Instead, he was in an underground room, watching a Mogadorian torture his Cêpan. Sandor screamed and screamed and screamed. Nine turned away from his screaming Cêpan, only to see an older version of himself screaming while being forced to watch the gruesome sight.

Nine blinked, and then he was back in the spar. He held up a hand, and Sandor immediately backed off. "What's wrong?"

"I just… saw something. Something that hasn't happened yet."

Sandor cocked his head to the side. "What was it?" But before Nine could answer, his Cêpan held up a hand. "Actually, don't say anything. It's dangerous to mess with time, Nine."

He strangled back the story and the sob that wanted to escape. He didn't want Sandor to be tortured, and he certainly didn't want to be forced to watch. "Yeah, okay."

Sandor rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. "It's okay, young ward. Nothing is set in stone yet."

Nine nodded, but his heart felt as if it were made of stone. "Yeah, okay," he repeated.

(LINE BREAK)

The next time his legacy reared its ugly head was when Nine met Four. When he shook the blond's hand, he was no longer in West Virginia in the Mog base. Instead, he was well… Nine didn't know where he was. But he saw Four, an older and more rugged-looking Four, holding a blonde girl in his arms. Nine peered at the girl as best as he could given the odd state of his vision. It didn't take a genius—or a coroner—to know that she was dead. Her skin was far too pale and clammy, and blood stained the front of her shirt. Her blue eyes were lifeless and unseeing, and her limbs hung limply around her.

Nine blinked, and then he pulled his hand away from Four's grasp. "Let's get out of here, Four. I'm done being locked up."

When he and Sam shook hands, Nine saw an altogether different scene. Rather than some gruesome torture scene or seeing the death of a loved one, Nine simply saw a short scene. In an almost-dark setting, he watched as Sam watched a woman walk away. Her long dark hair swung behind her as she walked. Sam's face was utterly heartbroken, and his eyes turned so sad as he watched that Nine almost felt bad for the guy. Still, it was strange. Sandor and John both had so morbid, terrible visions when Nine touched them. But Sam, he only saw some girl walking away?

Well, not everyone could have a tragic and terrible future.

(LINE BREAK)

When Eight, Marina, and Ella found Nine and John, Nine experienced three more visions. Marina's was something he hadn't expected from the seemingly shy girl. In his vision, she wore Eight's loralite amulet around her neck and was rather…enthusiastically kissing John. Nine blinked and blinked and blinked until it was over.

When he shook Eight's hand, Nine experienced two visions at the same time. In one, Eight was walking around Chicago with his hand tucked into Marina's. The two were walking all around Navy Pier and laughing together. It was a sweet scene, and the kind that he thought Sandor would have given a high movie rating for its aesthetics and appeal as a 'cute' scene in a romantic comedy. Even Nine couldn't help but smile a bit at the sight. They were two young teenagers in love, it seemed.

If the one scene was sweet, then the other was horrifying. In the other scene, Eight was frozen in time with a pained grimace across his face. An unknown figure whose face was obscured was staring at Eight in shock as he stared at the weapon in his hand. The weapon jutted out from Eight's back, and the sharp tip was just barely visible. Nine's whole body trembled when he was finally pulled out of his vision.

"Are you all right, man?" Eight asked him.

Nine blinked again. "Yeah, sorry. I guess I zoned out for a second there." He grinned at the boy. "And who's this kid?" he asked as he turned to the littlest of the group.

"I'm Ella," she said with a grin as they shook hands. And for the third time in just several minutes, Nine was pulled into another vision.

In this one, a much older version of Ella was sitting on a blanket in a grassy field. She was watching three children playing with each other while talking with someone—a man—on the blanket. Like with Eight's death-scene, and Sam's unfortunate heartbreak scene, Nine couldn't see the face of the man Ella was talking to. But, well, she was probably happy in the future.

(LINE BREAK)

After the battle with Setrakus Rá, Nine and Six finally met. Six was hot, he had to admit. Her blonde hair hung down her back and she looked pretty spectacular, even given that she had been held captive by the US government for days.

They shook hands, and Nine was again pulled into a terrible vision of the future.

He blinked, and took in the rather domestic scene. He hadn't expected that. Marina and Ella seemed to be nurturing, feminine types. He'd almost expected to see their futures full of children and all of that. Six, well, he'd figured that she'd live her life wrestling polar bears and killing Mogs or something. Maybe, eventually, she would settle down and have a kid or two so that she could teach them to fight and to be the best little Loric warriors possible.

But this scene was a total surprise. Six was standing in a kitchen that looked suspiciously like the one in Sandor's penthouse. She was humming an oddly enchanting melody while cooking, and her bare feet tapped in time with her song on the tile floor. The swell of her pregnant belly protruded under her apron, and a toddler was holding onto her neck and trying to tug on her dark hair, which was strange considering that Six was currently blonde. Another dark-haired child was pulling on the bottom of the dress that this older version of Six wore, and the child's dark eyes were wide as she tried to hide herself into her mother's leg. In the distance, Nine could hear two more children arguing about something in voices just soft enough not to be comprehensible.

Damn. He would not have pictured Six as the domestic type. If not for his promise to Sandor not to tell anyone about their future, Nine would have teased the warrior girl about this for the rest of her life. Or, at least, for the rest of her teenage years.

Then, Nine heard his own voice enter the scene. "Honey, I'm home!" His own voice called out. It was deeper and had obviously gotten passed all of the changes of puberty, but it was so strange to hear his own voice. It made his skin crawl and his ears tingle. And, maybe, it made another part of him feel weird too. _He _would be the father of these children? Of this verifiable brood of dark-haired, potentially badass warrior Loric children? _He _and Six would be… would… well, babies have to come from somewhere.

Nine didn't get to see his future self in his vision, but he did get to see the effect of his future self's presence on his future family. Six turned, presumably to look at him, with a wry smile on her face. "You don't have to say that like we're in a bad 60's sitcome, Nine," she retorted. "And tell Aaron and Diana to stop fighting, they never listen to me."

The sounds of arguing died down, and the painfully shy child even wandered away from her mother to come to see her father. Two voices—one male and one female—greeted him with a unison "Dad!" while a younger, squeakier, and quieter voice called out "Daddy!"

Nine felt something he'd never felt before stir up in his chest. He'd only known Six for well, no time at all, but… There was something about seeing her as the mother of his children… As the mother of their many, many children.

Damn. He wanted that. He and Sandor had been alone all of his life. But he'd always wanted more people around. And he'd always…. Well, Nine would certainly be open to having a big family. A very, very big family.

Nine blinked again, and he was back in the US base, shaking Six's hand. He tried to keep his jaw from dropping and his eyes from giving himself away as he processed his latest vision. Finally, he twisted his features into a cocky smirk. "It's nice to officially meet you, Sweetheart. I'm Nine."

(LINE BREAK)

Nine would never admit it, but he held onto that vision of himself and Six. When he was scared shitless about the war with the Mogs and desperately trying to hide it. He would get out of this alive, and so would Six. Even if things weren't going well between the two of them now, they would improve. They had to.

Nine would have his chance to be a father and pass down everything that Sandor taught him, along with the things he'd had to teach himself in Sandor's absence. One day… One day that would all be his.

That's what got him through everything. No matter how terrible it all was, he knew that it would get better. It had to.

(LINE BREAK)

Years and years and years after defeating Setrakus Rá, Nine walked into the apartment he shared with his family at the LANE school in San Francisco. And just because he knew his wife hated it, he called out "Honey, I'm home!" as he walked in the door.

With his enhanced hearing, he'd heard all that was happening in the apartment from the moment he even stepped into the building that housed all of the teachers and their families. Diana and Aaron were fighting again; he'd have to talk to them about listening to their mother. While Six wasn't quite as scary as she had been when she was young, she was still scary enough to get two nine-year-olds to listen to her. Maybe it was time to bring out the old weapons and give the kids a little demonstration.

"Dad!" Diana and Aaron crowed as he walked in the door. They immediately dropped whatever argument it was that they'd been having and ran up to tell him all about the training exercises they'd done with Aunt Lexa that day.

Catherine joined her older siblings, as shy as the little girl was. Well, perhaps shy was the wrong word. But Cathy hated conflict, and her constantly bickering siblings often made her withdraw into herself to avoid getting caught up in the argument of the hour. "Daddy!" She called out as she ran towards him.

Nine scooped his youngest daughter up into his arms and swung her around. At five, Cathy was still young enough to do this. Aaron and Diana had outgrown it, unfortunately. But the two made up for it in their own, trouble-making ways.

"What, no kiss for your tired husband who's had to deal with angsty teenagers all day?" Nine called out.

From the kitchen, he could hear Six snort. "If my husband doesn't want dinner to burn, he can come here and kiss me himself." There was a pause, and Nine would bet that Six was rolling her eyes at him and forcing down a laugh. "How was work today? Did any of the kids have a breakthrough with their legacies?"

"No, not yet. But I'm working on it."

And work on it he would. Slowly, over the years, he'd gotten better at controlling his visions of the future. He could even try to search for particular things, if he knew what he was looking for. Of course, Six always seemed to surprise him, even to this day.

They'd be doing something mundane and almost boring, like washing dishes or folding laundry, and their hands would brush. And, without warning, Nine would find himself launched decades into the future for just a few seconds to see snapshots of their lives as they aged together. It was a good life, he'd decided. Even if he could never tell anyone what it was that he saw when they brushed hands upon first meeting.

(LINE BREAK)

**Hello everyone! Thanks for reading this latest one-shot. Please review and tell me your thoughts! This just kind of came to me earlier today when I was driving home, so I just **_**had **_**to write it down and share it with y'all. I hope you enjoyed!  
~Nerd**


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